The Arab revolution.

• Author: Pal, Amitabh
• Position: Comment - Tunisia and Egypt - Column

This year has already proven to be the most memorable in modern Arab history.

When I visited Egypt back in 2002, I met human rights activists who were constantly harassed for daring to speak up. No one could then imagine large-scale protests against the government. So, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators bravely faced off against Hosni Mubarak's goons, something unprecedented was happening.

That's why the U.S. role was so disappointing. It did itself no credit by its halting and mealy-mouthed response to the events in Tunisia and Egypt--alienating millions of Arabs in the process. It was an ally of both dictatorships, while claiming to be on the side of democracy. And it lavished aid on both regimes, notably Egypt, which has received an average of about $2 billion a year over the last three decades, most of it in military assistance. Much of this was a shell game--a massive subsidy to American weapons manufacturers--but it did help bolster the repressive Egyptian security apparatus.

This cozy relationship with the two autocracies is why the United States was ambivalent about the uprisings. It was with Tunisian tyrant Zine el-Abidine Ben All till almost the last minute. At the start of the demonstrations in Egypt in late January, it stood by Mubarak, too. President Obama made no mention of the brave Egyptian protesters in his State of the Union speech. Vice President Joe Biden said he didn't consider Mubarak a dictator. Obama became more emphatic when Mubarak's situation looked precarious. But then the Obama Administration took a go-slow approach and favored the succession of Omar Suleiman, Egypt's vice president. Suleiman used to head Egypt's brutal intelligence service and was our "point man" on renditions, according to The New Yorker .

Why all this American hesitancy about siding with the average Egyptian? Egypt under Anwar Sadat signed a peace deal with Israel, and the overriding U.S. imperative has been to have a government in place that will respect that agreement. Plus, there's all the trade that flows through the Suez Canal, as well as U.S. comfort at having a dictator in power who cooperated on everything from isolating Hamas to following a tough approach on Iran.

There is always an economic or geostrategic concern that results in the United States pitting itself against, as Martin Luther King prophetically said decades ago, "the shirtless and barefoot people." Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, like their...